Snapshot of Indian TV

When someone is called impotent on Indian TV, It leads to a death – if it happens in England in ends in serialisation of their Autobiography in The Sun. However, Indian culture is such that there is an expectation of morals in the media. Within the last decade, we have seen fire-boming of the film “Fire” because of the main story about two women in love. Other films have been censored by the Bollywood system – why deal with a serious issue in a serious way when you can throw in a song and dance routine?

We have a perfect example of Hegemony in this system. At the tom, we have the officials who are extremely conservative – these are the people talking about these TV programmes and moving them to the later slots. These are the elite. However, the poor of the country will share those conservative views. This leaves the Middle classes who are questioning this conservatism, and the audience who the programmes are made for – and presumably, the ones watching and enjoying in large numbers, hence the shows being made.

It is worth investigating India’s TV and Film industry, its culture and society, as some of the same themes of Class, hegemony, cultural elitism etc apply here – just that in India, it is more extreme and therefore easier to examine.